


catching stars to keep

by thistidalwave



Category: One Direction (Band), Radio 1 RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space, Android Harry, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-28
Updated: 2014-10-28
Packaged: 2018-02-23 01:02:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2528207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thistidalwave/pseuds/thistidalwave
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Space AU. Harry wants nothing more than to be human.</p>
            </blockquote>





	catching stars to keep

**Author's Note:**

  * For [froding](https://archiveofourown.org/users/froding/gifts).



**0.5**

The universe composes a symphony, and when Harry stares out into the stars he can hear the marvelous up and down melodies of them communicating. 

It’s a disaster when the ship is going faster than light, the edges of the notes falling into and over each other, disappearing a moment later, a discordant riot of sound for all the pretty oscillation of colour on the other side of the reinforced titanium hull, reflected back by the ship’s computer to give the illusion of a window. But when they drop out of FTL, it quiets. The vacuum of space provides the blank sheets for the stars to write their notes on, and everywhere sounds different, a movement unto itself.

Harry’s favourite, so far, is the way it had sounded only two months after his activation, the first time he’d been aboard the _SS Fireproof_. The existing crew were required to attend a meeting about interacting with, controlling, and making use of an android, and Harry was only needed for the last thirty minutes of the two hours. He’d wandered the ship alone, cataloguing it for himself despite his preprogrammed specs, and had eventually settled in the viewing room. 

They’d been docked on the South American section of the International Space Station above Earth, and Harry had never been by a EIV-window before. There had been no reason to be. 

There were no technical drawings or coding that could explain what looking into space was like. Harry was not supposed to be able to feel anything beyond what his emotional subroutine allowed, but the constellations don’t care about programming. They don’t care if you’re listening. They sing anyway, and it’s up to you to stay still and listen.

Staring out that EIV-window, Harry had been at a loss to do anything but. He’s still standing, listening to the impossible sound of the Andromeda constellation crooning in his ears, when one of his supervising techs finds him.

Logically, this is a flaw, some sort of crossed wire or a typo in a line of code somewhere deep in Harry’s software, and he should report it as such. He never does, because he knows that the symphony of the stars is the closest he’s ever come to feeling the way that a human does. 

So he keeps it a secret, and he waits to drop out of FTL in an area of space that sounds as beautiful as the stars visible from Earth do. Nowhere has measured up yet, but Harry believes it’s out there somewhere, ready to fit in the empty place inside him that’s waiting for it. 

 

**1**

It starts when Harry laughs at a joke Nick makes. 

Nick hadn’t really been expecting anyone to laugh. He’s been spending more time than ever with the archives since they were assigned the new mission, reading old stories from the history of the human race for lack of anything better to do, and his joke was a reference to a popular meme from the early twenty-first century. The bridge is silent in the moments after he says it—Matt ignores him completely, Aimee merely raises her eyebrows, Louis makes a confused face—but then Harry laughs. 

It’s odd sounding, not quite real, but Harry’s smile looks genuine. “That was a good one,” Harry says when he notices everyone staring at him. 

“I’ve never heard an android laugh before,” Aimee says. “I didn’t think they could.”

Louis smacks Aimee. “‘Course they can. Social programming, innit?” 

“Most of us try to avoid it. It’s not a perfect software,” Harry says, looking overly stiff. 

“You understood my joke,” Nick says to Harry.

“Yes? It’s a bit dated, but still amusing, I thought.” Everyone is still looking, so Harry shrugs in the hopes that they’ll look away.

“Unlimited access to the vast reaches of recorded human experience and the high speed memory power to access it,” Matt says. “Looks like—“

“My new best friend,” Nick finishes, grinning widely at Harry. 

It takes a moment, but Harry cautiously smiles back. 

-

The two year anniversary of the SS _Fireproof_ ’s second mission ticks by with sedate fanfare. Nobody really wants to think about how they’re no closer to finding a planet for Earth to establish a colony on than they had been two years ago, but it’s unavoidable today.

Still, they synthesise a cake, which everyone pretends to enjoy (except Harry, who is rather glad he doesn’t have to eat it), and Matt does a little speech, which everyone claps for, and then Niall does another a little later. They end by insisting on a group hug, and no one can resist Niall, so everyone piles in. Harry is squished between LMC and Caroline and Henry, and it’s kind of nice, as things go.

The group disperses after that, though, back to work or relaxation, and barely anyone smiles for more than a moment. It’s been over three years since the _SS Fireproof_ and its crew launched from the Buenos Aires spaceport—three years since any of the humans set foot on Earth and breathed in its fresh air. There are books upon books about the effect that might have on a person; Harry knows because he searched the World Library and couldn’t begin to choose one to download the information from.

Everyone is some degree of sad and some element of displaced. This crew was not assembled to assess generic empty planet after generic empty planet. They were meant to meet new races and fill themselves with knowledge, and without that excitement, the atmosphere in the ship is one of bleak, bitter disappointment that permeates the very walls. 

Harry’s need to help is working overdrive trying to find a way to confront this problem, but no matter what calculations he does, he can’t determine even one viable solution. It’s frustrating. 

The problem is especially apparent in Nick, who, from what Harry has gleaned from stories the crew tell, used to be a lot more boisterous. He’s still a constant presence, always finding time to visit everyone and have a laugh with them, but sometimes people whisper in corners about how it’s not the same. (Harry tries not to eavesdrop, but people tend not to mind what androids hear.)

It doesn’t seem fair that Nick, with his easy smile and kind words and ability to cheer other people, should be sad. It’s this logic that leads Harry to decide that, though he still doesn’t know what he’s going to do, he will start with Nick. 

And if it isn’t logic that Harry’s decision stems from and rather the fact that when Nick looks at him, he smiles just like he smiles at everyone else, well. No one has to know.

-

It’s not like they were ever going to immediately spend every waking moment together after the best friend declaration. It was just one joke, a fleeting moment out of many. Harry spends a lot of time off the ship, always the first to be sent down to a new planet before the rest of the away team follow, and Nick spends a lot of time doing not a lot. 

His role as communications officer has shifted from very important to practically negligible now that instead of visiting planets that have intelligent life, they deliberately visit those that don’t. It’s hard for Nick not to feel useless when he can spend literally three straight shifts in his room without anyone actually needing him—he knows because he did on one particularly bad day. It had been quiet and horrible, and literally everyone fussed over him when he emerged, asking if he was feeling well and why they hadn’t seen him. That had been validating, if not helpful. 

Nick is hiding in his room again, trying to have a kip, when his communicator trills at him from where he’d ditched it on the table. He expects it to stop after one ring when his do-not-disturb message plays, but it doesn’t. It’s probably too much to hope that they’re under attack from some unknown hostile force and actually in need of someone well-versed in intergalactic communication and conflict resolution, especially considering that they’re currently in FTL, but Nick hopes it anyway.

“Grimshaw,” he says into the communicator, probably a bit too eager. 

“Nick! You answered, finally, thank you. Do you think you can come by corridor M3?” 

Nick frowns. This does not sound like they’re under attack. “The corridors have letter-numbers?”

“They do, yes,” Harry says. “Sorry, it’s the one kind of by engineering? But also kind of between the botany lab and the medbay?”

“Harry,” Nick says, “those three things are nowhere near each other.” 

“I said kind of. It loops around. No one uses it, usually.”

“Why are you using it?”

There’s silence for a moment, and then Harry’s voice comes back. “You should really just get here. Look up the ship blueprints on your tablet, the corridors are marked on those.”

“Fine, I’ll come,” Nick says.

“Thank you so much,” Harry says. “And if you could hurry, that would be good? Thank you.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Nick mumbles to himself instead of into the communicator. It takes him a minute to find the corridor Harry is talking about once he’s opened the blueprints, because it really is strangely located in a corner, but once he does he can tell exactly how to get there.

It doesn’t take long before he’s there—it doesn’t take long to get anywhere on this spaceship—but there’s no sign of Harry. He frowns and steps cautiously into the dark corridor, making the automatic lights snap on. “Harry?” 

“Don’t go any farther,” Harry’s disembodied voice says. Nick frowns and ignores the order, walking down the corridor.

“Where even are you?”

“You can’t say I didn’t warn you,” Harry says, and Nick slowly realises that it’s getting kind of hard to walk. Namely, the ground is too far away for his feet. And he’s floating upward. And his head just smacked into something metal. 

“What the hell?” 

“Ouch, that’s my stomach,” Harry says cheerfully. “Welcome to the zero grav corridor.”

Nick flails around in the air, trying to turn himself so he can actually see Harry. He finally manages an approximation, wedging himself between the wall and the ceiling. Harry’s done the same thing on the other side.

“There’s a zero grav corridor?” Nick asks, wondering if this is a new thing, like actual labels for the corridors. He learns new and exciting things every day. 

“There’s not actually supposed to be,” Harry says. “The gravity sensors must be broken.” 

“Must be?” Nick asks, raising his eyebrows. 

“I did a scan and they are,” Harry says. “I’ve been here for two hours.” 

“Two hours? And you wanted me to come and get stuck hanging upside down why?” 

Nick thinks Harry might shrug, but it’s really quite hard to tell. “I don’t know, I thought you could use a change in pace,” Harry says. He pushes off from the wall and comes flying at Nick way too fast. Nick’s reflexes are not that great, so he doesn’t move at all and gets Harry’s full weight straight to the chest. “Whoops, miscalculated.” 

Nick sincerely doubts that Harry, highly advanced space android that he is, miscalculated his velocity. “Why are you harassing me in zero grav?” he asks, shoving Harry away from him. He has to let go to do so, though, so he ends up floating awkwardly down the corridor while Harry does a fascinating pinball impression, hitting the floor and then both walls. 

“Change in pace,” Harry repeats, following Nick down the corridor by jumping from one architectural fold in the wall to the next. It’s very graceful. Nick continues to just let himself float. He assumes at some point either the corridor has to end or the gravity sensors will start working.

“I feel a bit like a pinball,” Nick says, because it occurs to him that Harry will understand. 

It takes a second, but Harry laughs. It’s strange, just like it had been on the bridge that first time, but Nick somehow appreciates it all the more. 

Then the lights snap off. Nick blinks, trying to adjust, and then realises there’s no way to adjust to complete and utter darkness. “Um, Harry?” 

“Yeah?” 

“The lights?” 

“The motion sensors are by the floor,” Harry says. 

Nick has no idea which way the floor is anymore, but he attempts to direct himself toward a surface anyway. He manages it, but it’s a smooth one, nowhere to grab, and clearly not the floor, because he’s still in the dark. “Harry, don’t you come equipped with lights?” 

“Unfortunately no. I do have night vision, though.”

“Oh good, night vision! That helps me so much, thanks.” 

“Don’t give me that look,” Harry says. 

“Am I giving you a look? Hadn’t noticed, too dark.” Nick pouts. “Were you just floating here in the dark for two hours?” 

“Might’ve been.” Harry smacks himself into the floor and the lights come back on. “What’s it to you?” he asks, careening straight into Nick again.

Nick grabs at Harry’s arms, trying to steady them both with little success. “Nothing, really, except a mild concern for the efficiency of this spaceship. Don’t you have important duties? Is it your responsibility to fix gravity sensors, or does someone else do that? If someone else does that, why didn’t you call them and not, you know, me?” 

“Someone else does that,” Harry says, pushing them away from a wall with his foot. “Though technically I could do it. If someone requested it of me.” 

“But not just of your own free will?” 

“It counts as a mid-range importance operation, I need verbal clearance to address those.”

“Such a stickler for the rules,” Nick says teasingly. 

Harry doesn’t frown, but his face does go strangely blank. “The system locks me out,” he says. 

Nick immediately feels bad. The gravity sensors aren’t smart enough to know who’s working on them, and the ship is only slightly smarter, so that means it’s Harry’s own system that won’t let him. Nick figures that not having control over yourself probably isn’t the greatest feeling. “Do I have authorisation to request the fixing of the gravity sensors?” 

“You do,” Harry says. 

“Then by all means, please fix them,” Nick says. 

“Of course.” They float in silence for a long moment, hands wrapped around each other’s arms, before Harry adds, “You’re going to have to help me get to the control panel around the corner, though.” 

Nick groans. “Great, I love acrobatics.”

“That’s the spirit.”

-

“It’s funny,” Nick says to Aimee in the mess, his mouth full of synthesised cheese, “the entire ship appears to be falling apart.”

Aimee raises a perfect eyebrow and steals some of Nick’s cheese. (Nick doesn’t blame her. This cheese is one of the only things the synthesiser gets to taste truly authentic.) “How do you mean?” 

Nick shrugs. “Harry’s just been pinging me a lot over the past week or so and asking me to come help him fix this or that. Near constant, really. And I don’t do anything except watch, because we all know how useful I am.”

“Stop that, you’re useful,” Aimee says automatically. “But that’s odd. Isn’t fixing the ship Henry’s job?”

Nick rolls his eyes. “When have we ever seen Henry do any work?” 

“Mmmm, maybe that’s my point.” When Nick looks at her blankly, Aimee elaborates. “Ship’s never broken.”

She gets called back to the bridge then, but the conversation sticks in Nick’s head, Aimee’s point wiggling in and making itself a nice home at the back of his brain.

 

**2**

Harry has half his body squeezed into the bottom of one of the hydroponics tables, looking at a tangled mess of wires and trying to calculate how the hell such a thing is possible, when Nick asks, “Do you make up problems just so we can hang out?” 

Harry freezes and stares at the wires. “No,” he says. 

“Really? Do things break this often and I just haven’t heard about it before?” 

“Likely,” Harry says, because it is likely that Nick wouldn’t hear about things breaking. It’s not his area by any means.

“I mean, the gravity sensors were definitely actually broken, but the computers in the medbay? The doors in engineering? Literally all of Bressie’s weapons?” 

Harry fixates on following the paths of the wires to determine what they do. “Most of those were real,” he says. 

“Aha!” Nick crows. Harry unplugs a purple wire and plugs it back in. The table starts making a strange whirring sound. “ _Most_. So which weren’t? And why are you trying to trick me? Not that I don’t appreciate it, I enjoy staring at your arse in my free time.” 

“The gravity sensors,” Harry says, analysing the frequency of the whirring.

“Sorry, you’re going to have to speak up for my poor human ears, they can’t hear over the racket this thing is making.” Harry carefully extracts himself and stands. Nick is lounging in Zayn’s desk chair, and he shakes his head at Harry. “And now you’ve ruined my view.”

“You like my arse that much?” Harry asks.

“I’m just saying it’s fine craftsmanship. Expert work. Give my regards to your designer.”

“I don’t think I’m going to do that,” Harry says. “Could you move, please? I need to interface with the hydroponics computers.” 

Nick huffs in annoyance, but he gets up. Harry sits down in his place and presses a hand to the display screen. “Are you going to tell me, though?” Nick asks. 

Harry ignores him, writing a patch for the glitch in the hydroponics table and nudging it carefully into place. The whirring stops and the table lights come to life, the entire thing back in working order. Harry starts running diagnostics on the rest of the lab in case all the tables are eventually going to go the way of table six. 

“Harryyyyyy,” Nick says, draping himself over Harry’s back, chin hooked over Harry’s shoulder. “Tell me.” 

“The gravity sensors,” Harry says again. “They were the one that wasn’t real.” 

“That makes no sense.” 

“I broke them,” Harry says. “Or, to be more precise, I turned them off. Temporarily.”

Nick’s weight disappears from Harry’s back. “You turned them off? But you tinkered with the control panel for a good hour when you were fixing them.” 

“That control panel is in better working order than possibly any control panel in the universe,” Harry says. He can see Nick staring at him in his peripherals, but he doesn’t dare turn to actually look at him. 

“And the permission to fix them thing?” 

“Technically true.” 

Nick is quiet for a moment. The diagnostics finish. All but one of the tables is liable to glitch like table six, so Harry sets about preemptively patching them. “Everything else?”

“Real,” Harry assures him. “Once you start looking, you can find many things to fix.” 

“Okay,” Nick says. “But why?” 

“I’m looking out for the safety of the crew,” Harry says, deliberately misinterpreting Nick’s question. 

Nick rolls his eyes. “No, why do you always call me?” 

Harry finishes patching and removes his hand from the screen. He turns to look at Nick because he can’t see a way to avoid it anymore. He wishes he hadn’t, because the way Nick is looking at him makes Harry feel as if Nick can read his code like a book. 

“I’m looking out for you,” Harry says.

Nick frowns. “You don’t need to do that. I’m fine.” 

Harry shrugs. Nick almost sounds convincing when he says that. Harry thinks he’d believe it if he didn’t know better. 

“I am,” Nick insists. This time the lie is tangible to them both.

-

“I wish I were human,” Harry says. He’s not fixing anything, but he is hanging out with Nick. They do that now. The newness of the situation is throwing Harry off.

Nick looks over from where he’s playing a game on his bridge station computer. “Why? We’re a bunch of hot messes, you should know that.”

Harry doesn’t have an answer. He wishes he did. “I don’t think so.”

Nick snorts. 

-

Days later, Nick pokes at his spaghetti and sighs. “See this, young Harold?” he asks, holding up a forkful of pasta.

“I do,” Harry says. 

“If nothing else, this is why you shouldn’t want to be human. You are _lucky_ that you don’t have to eat. This shit is actual garbage. Like actually.”

“Not anymore it’s not.”

Nick groans. “Do _not_ say that. Do not.”

“Sorry,” Harry says. There’s a moment of silence in which Nick takes a bite of the garbage and discovers it still tastes like he remembers, which is to say rather like wet cardboard and completely awful. “You’re wrong, though.”

“Am I? Do enlighten me.”

“This is actually an example of a time I would like to be human,” Harry says. “In books, humans always describe their experiences so… poignantly. They focus on their emotions, and no two accounts of the same events are identical. I wish I could experience things like that.” 

“Including terrible synthesised food?” Nick asks.

Harry nods, a movement that’s somehow always too jerky when he does it. “The full range of human emotion is fascinating.” 

“I’d be content to stick to observing it if I were you, mate,” Nick says. He puts down his fork and stares at his plate. 

“Do you want me to get you some cheese?” Harry asks. 

Nick beams at him. Mission accomplished. “Yes, thanks.” 

-

Harry writes up and distributes an anonymous survey to the entire crew every month to assess, on a general and relative scale, their well-being. Matt says he likes to know these things about the people he’s responsible for, even if he can’t do anything to help them. 

They do have counselling services in the form of Liam and Fiona, but while Liam is fully certified to practice medicine and Fiona has her nursing training, neither of them actually specialise in psychology. In fact, Nick is probably more qualified than they are, a fact which Harry sees fit to keep between himself and Matt. (This because he once brought it up to Matt and Matt told him it wasn’t an option. Harry suspects Nick knows as well.)

So, monthly surveys and private meetings are it, and two months after the time Harry turned off the gravity sensors, overall morale and good humour is up by 23.44 percent including last month’s survey. It’s a stark difference to the slow decline it had been on previously.

Matt immediately comms Harry when he pings the results over. “Did you do something? Does this have to do with you and Nick being together all the time?”

It’s no surprise that Matt knows. Harry would be surprised if there were anyone on the ship who didn’t. Niall has taken to waggling their eyebrows at Harry whenever they see him with Nick, which Harry understands the intent of but doesn’t know what to do with. Everything is confusing, lately, it seems. 

“It’s likely,” Harry replies. 

“Well, good work, Harry. Keep it up.”

“Yes, sir.” 

-

“Dudes, come look at this,” Niall says. “If you pour water on this sand it turns to crystal.” 

Away Team 4 crowds around to watch Niall pour a tiny bit of water out of their water bottle. Sure enough, as soon as it hits the sand-like substance it turns to a light green crystalline structure. 

Fiona gasps and crouches down next to Niall, already rifling through her bag for equipment to test with. “This is great, Ian’s going to love it,” she gushes. “It’s probably more up chemistry’s alley than mine. I don’t see any immediate evidence that it’s biological. What do you think, Harry?” 

Harry discusses the possible makeup of the substance with Fiona for long enough that Niall and Bressie take to standing directly behind them and complaining loudly. 

“There’s a whole planet here and you two are fixated on this tiny patch of sand,” Niall says. “Can we go?”

“Can’t you two go alone?” Fiona asks, not looking up from her weigh scale. 

“No,” Harry says, “they can’t. Not after the last time. And none of us should be alone, either.”

Fiona sighs and starts packing up. Bressie looks slightly uncomfortable, large and menacing as he is with his arsenal of weapons strapped to him, but Niall is grinning. “You’re just jealous,” they say, smug as can be. 

“Oh, please, neither of us is jealous of you and Bressie snogging against a tree that turned out to periodically rain toxic seeds,” Fiona scoffs, shouldering her pack. 

“I still have scars from that,” Bressie says sadly. 

“The scars give you character, babe, don’t worry,” Niall says. “Although, fine, that wasn’t that good. Whatever. I’m the boss here, I get to say where we go and when we go there.” 

“Careful, we might mutiny,” Bressie says, but he’s put one hand on the small of Niall’s back and is smiling at them. Niall smiles back and leads the way back up the small hill to continue their investigation. 

Harry watches the way Niall leans into Bressie and thinks about jealousy. 

-

Nick is scrolling through his music collection on his tablet, trying to decide what playlist he feels like listening to, when his door chirps the indication of someone requesting access.

“Come in,” Nick calls out. 

The doors slide open and Harry walks in, stopping in the middle of the room. On anyone else, it would look awkward, but for Harry it’s normal. 

“Hey, Haz,” Nick says. He absentmindedly pats next to him on the bed. “Thought you’d still be down on the planet. Another bust?” 

Harry sits down, slow and careful, next to Nick. He doesn’t say anything for long enough that Nick looks up at him questioningly. “Do you think you could kiss me?” Harry asks.

Nick stares at him. “I— um. Uh. What?” 

“Could you kiss me?” 

“I mean, yes? I _could_ ,” Nick says. He fumbles with the tablet, hitting a random playlist and giving up. He puts the tablet down and turns to face Harry completely. “Why are you asking?” 

Harry shrugs. Nick shakes his head. Shrugging is what Harry does when he’s unsure and doesn’t know what to do. He nudges Harry’s arm. “Hey, I’d love to kiss you. I just want to know where you’re coming from.” 

Harry is quiet again, his face completely unreadable save the occasional flash behind his eyes. Nick thinks that if someone else—someone human—just sat there without saying anything, Nick would be annoyed and a little uncomfortable and probably start rambling himself. But Harry’s not human, and Nick can be patient.

It might’ve been nice if he’d picked a playlist that wasn’t grating old-school EDM, though.

“It looks nice,” Harry says finally, “when I see people do it. They look happy.” 

“Well, they should,” Nick agrees. 

“I wanted to try it,” Harry says, and Nick wonders if he actually means _I wanted to be happy_ , “but it’s not a part of my programming or anything, so I don’t know if it’s possible.” He looks so earnest that Nick has to laugh.

“Sorry, I’m not laughing at you,” he says quickly. “Let me tell you a little secret about humanity.”

“Okay,” Harry says, eyes wide.

Nick smiles. “We don’t come with much of anything preprogrammed. And that includes kissing.” 

Harry looks as frustrated as Nick has ever seen him. “No, you learn how, I know that.”

“If it can be learned, why do you think that you can’t learn it?” Nick asks. 

Harry stands abruptly. “I have to go.”

“What?” Nick stands as well, reaching out for Harry but stopping short of actually grabbing him. “Don’t leave, Harry, I—” 

“I have to,” Harry says. He stares at Nick’s outstretched hand, seemingly entranced for a moment before he turns away and walks out of the room. The doors silently slide shut behind him.

Nick sits back down. His tablet is still playing, now a dubstep remix of the song before it. “Stop music,” he tells it louder than necessary, and then he sits in the silence going over all the ways he could have not fucked that up.

 

**3**

It takes some effort to fit a crew of fourteen people onto the bridge, considering it’s only meant to house four or five at a time at best, but somehow they manage it. Logically, nonessential crew could look at the new planet they’ve just entered orbit above from the viewing room, but they never do. Harry’s given up on trying to figure out why.

“Well, that’s certainly boring,” Aimee says.

“Agreed,” Zayn says. “Doesn’t look like there’ll be much plant life down there.” 

The planet is just slightly larger than Earth and an ideal distance from its sun, things they’d already determined before charting a course to come here. However, it’s completely shrouded in a gaseous white substance. If Harry enhances his vision beyond human capability, he can occasionally spot light blue through the white. 

“Preliminary scans don’t look too bad,” Ian says, prodding at a computer screen. “There’s definitely water.”

“That’s promising,” Matt says. “I want us to be extra careful with the scans before I send the team down there, though, who knows what that gas could be. Ian, Harry, you’re on duty with the computers. A4, be on standby. If you’re not on bridge shift, get out now, please.” 

There’s a collective sigh and a few acknowledgements of “Commander,” as people shuffle past Matt on their way out. 

Harry sits down in the chair next to Ian. “Exciting,” he says, gesturing to the readouts the computer is constantly spitting out. 

“Oh, very,” Ian agrees. “Hours of watching the computer attempt to tell us just how not similar this planet is to Earth and all the reasons we shouldn’t stay here, and then you guys will go down there anyway because that’s protocol.”

“Annoying protocol, if you ask me,” Louis says, coming up behind Harry and leaning on the back of his chair. “Though it does give me copious amounts of time in which to sit in my chair playing World Solitaire, which you know I love.” 

“We know,” Ian says, rolling his eyes. “Is Niall coming to relieve you before they get sent out?” 

Louis shrugs. “Ask him,” he says, pointing at Matt.

“They’re getting suited up, then they’ll be here so Louis can go take a shower for once,” Matt says without looking up from his tablet. 

“Oh, thank goodness,” Aimee says. As the flight officer, her workstation is connected to the pilot’s, and she likes to complain about it. “I was about to pass out.” 

“Shut the fuck up,” Louis says good-naturedly. 

Niall shows up not fifteen minutes later, and Louis practically runs off the bridge before he’s even officially dismissed. Niall laughs and sits down in the pilot’s chair to rearrange the entire screen so it’s the way they like it, which is, for some reason, completely different than how Louis keeps it. 

“Anything interesting yet?” they ask, turning toward Ian and Harry. 

“No,” Harry says. “We think Zayn was right about minimal carbon based plant life, but we still don’t know anything, really.”

“Business as usual, then,” Niall says. 

“Yep,” Ian agrees. 

An hour and a half later, Harry is watching Ian slowly nod off and trying to decide whether he should let him or wake him up when the computer pings and the steady stream of black writing turns red. Harry stares at it for a moment, running the information through his processors twice because he’s not sure it’s real, and then says, “Ian.”

Ian jerks in his seat. “Wha— what? What’s happened?”

Harry gestures to the screen. Ian leans in and squints at it, then leans away, eyes wide. “No way.”

“What?” Niall asks. 

“There’s life on the planet,” Harry says. 

Niall’s eyebrows furrow. “So?”

“There’s about an eighty percent probability that it’s intelligent life,” Harry clarifies. 

Suddenly Niall, Aimee, and Matt are all crowding around the screen. “Shit,” Niall says.

“We haven’t talked to a new alien species since before we were assigned this mission,” Aimee says excitedly.

They usually deliberately target planets that don’t have lifeforms, because no one wants to force themselves upon an alien race, so Harry has never met a sentient alien species he didn’t already have data on. It’s kind of, he thinks, an exciting thought. It’s not even a question that he’d be able to learn about a new race, to understand the way they work and adjust his behaviour to communicate effectively with them, and the starkness of that fact hits him hard. 

There’s rapid debate as everyone starts excitedly discussing what their approach will be. Harry hears Nick’s name mentioned, but he’s really only logging the conversation in the background. He’s more preoccupied with thinking about Nick saying _why do you think that you can’t learn it?_

 _Maybe I can_ , Harry thinks fiercely. _Maybe I can._

-

They send Harry down by himself at first, just like they’re supposed to, but this time Nick is linked into Harry’s auditory circuit in case he encounters the locals and needs diplomatic backup. 

“How’s it down there?” Nick asks. Harry starts, unused to the disembodied voice, then frowns at the plant he’s analysing. 

“It’s very warm,” he says in response. 

“Too warm?” 

“No, though if this is winter, that would be an issue,” Harry says. “The air has an optimal oxygen level, though.”

Nick makes the humming noise Harry knows means that he’s bored, doesn’t care, or is distracted. Or possibly all of the above. “Why don’t you look for a sentient being and ask them if it’s winter?” 

Harry feels safe in this patch of plants. Plants are familiar. Nonetheless, he steps out of it and starts walking in the direction they’d determined that one of the larger settlements was located. “How am I supposed to greet them?” he wonders aloud. 

Nick sends him three articles on the subject of making first contact instead of saying anything. It reminds Harry of communicating with other androids back on the space station: pure information, no emotion. It tastes slightly metallic in Harry’s mouth, and he tries a different tactic. “What would you do?” he asks. 

“I’d probably start with hi and go from there,” Nick says. 

It’s as good advice as any, Harry figures, so that’s exactly what he does when he runs into a group of three halfway to the likely settlement. 

They’re short and skinny beings, half the height of the average human, and their skin is lilac where Harry can see it beneath their fur clothing. Harry wonders what sort of furry creatures they killed for those. They talk in a language of clicks and slurs punctuated by meaningful gestures, and Harry immediately starts searching for any similar language they’ve encountered. 

They seem confused, mostly, which is much better than angry, and they circle Harry, poking at his exosuit. Nick is laughing. “They’re cute,” he says. “And they kind of remind me of the Ea’gaithr. Here.” He punctuates his last word by pinging Harry a hefty file about a race the _SS Fireproof_ encountered early in their career. “Don’t process all that now. Try saying this.” He sends Harry a string of phonetic symbols that Harry dutifully says aloud.

The beings all stop, surprised, and then start talking over each other excitedly. 

Harry eventually learns that it is winter on this planet, which is called ‘Threshta’ in the closest English equivalent, and that the locals have never met anyone not of their world before. They offer Harry food, and Harry has a hell of a time explaining that he’s actually a machine, not an organic being, which is not at all helped by Nick laughing the entire time. 

The children of one of the beings Harry had met (Harry thinks their name is something like ‘Shra’, but he can’t be sure) teach him how to play a simple game with dice-like rocks. They seem very pleased when he gets it, talking at him with high-pitched voices that he struggles to parse, and Nick says, “Cool game you’ve learned there. Having fun?” 

Harry silently pings him an affirmative. 

-

Harry brings back A4 plus Nick the next day with the permission of the locals, who are even more excited to meet proper lifeforms. The Threshtans invite them to stay for the evening meal, and it’s after sunset by the time the team leaves. They’re all reluctant—Bressie had been trying, with Nick’s help, to determine what kind of weapons they had, for hunting or otherwise; Niall had been sweet talking (minus the actual talking) everyone into giving them more food, which they then tucked into every pocket they had with even a little space; and Fiona had been contentedly taking samples of whatever biological things she could possibly get the Threshtans to hand over.

“Pretty good for your first first contact, hey?” Nick asks outside the shuttle, the other three busy loading things in. Harry should probably be helping, but he’s content to stand next to Nick. 

“Yes, it went well,” he replies. Harry looks up at the stars. There are clusters upon clusters of them clearly visible, and the result is a rhythmic chord progression, louder and louder the longer Harry looks. “The sky is rather chaotic, though.”

Nick looks up as well. “It’s very bright,” he says. 

“It sounds like that old song you like,” Harry says. “The one by Sigma?” 

Nick looks at him, and Harry has no idea what his expression means. “Does it?” 

Harry looks back at him and nods. They stand there, looking at each other, for longer than is strictly comfortable, all the way until Niall yells for them to get on the shuttle.

-

“Done anything interesting today?” Nick asks.

Harry considers the parameters of ‘interesting’ as they pertain to Nick, then says, “Matt got into an argument with LMC and Caroline again. There was a lot of throwing of tools in Matt’s general direction.”

Nick laughs. “The engine speed thing?” 

“Matt’s need for speed has not yet been satisfied,” Harry deadpans. Nick laughs harder, which makes Harry feel a bit better about the awkwardness of their current situation.

Harry hadn’t been back to Nick’s room since he’d asked Nick if he would kiss him and then ran away without letting him try, and he’d considered ignoring Nick’s ping asking him to come by (it wouldn’t be the first time), but here he is, sitting cross-legged on Nick’s bed, with Nick perched on the edge looking nervous. 

“Harry—“

“Could you—”

“Sorry, please go ahead,” Harry says. 

Nick shifts back on the bed, situating himself closer to Harry. “Do you still want to kiss me?” 

If Harry needed breath, he imagines that it would be stuck in his throat now. “I don’t know,” he says.

“Do you want to, um, just try?” Nick is avoiding Harry’s eyes, studying his blankets instead.

“Do you want to kiss me?” Harry asks curiously. 

“God, yes,” Nick says, surprised. “I thought you knew that.”

“Why?” 

Nick bites his lip. Harry tracks the motion, strangely fascinated. “I like you,” he says. “I think you look very kissable.” He smiles. “Actually, I’ve never really understood your face. You’re very attractive, did you know that?” 

Harry smiles tentatively back. “Yes. My face is designed to be both symmetrical and average in order to appeal to the maximum amount of humans.”

Nick snorts. “Well, all right then, average face.” 

“I would like to try kissing you,” Harry decides. 

Nick visibly swallows. “Okay, well.” Harry waits, but Nick doesn’t move.

“You’re going to have to lead,” Harry reminds him.

“Of course,” Nick mumbles. He leans in slowly enough for Harry to match him, and their lips collide awkwardly. Nick snickers to himself and tries again, this time managing to actually kiss Harry properly. It takes a moment, but Harry figures out how to kiss back. 

Kissing is a bit strange, Harry thinks, though the more they do it, the more Nick seems to like it, and Harry likes that part. The actual act, though, the slide of their lips together and the tongues and the mingling breath, that Harry doesn’t think anything of other than his intellectual interest. He wants to feel the fireworks and the sparks where Nick is touching him, and the fact that he doesn’t when he had almost completely convinced himself he would is devastating. 

“Nick,” Harry says quietly. 

Nick pulls away immediately. “What is it? Not good?” 

He’s looking at Harry so earnestly that Harry shakes his head. “No, it’s good, it’s just… I’m getting pinged.”

Nick frowns. “You don’t have to lie, Haz. We were just trying, right?”

“Right, but… really, I have to go.” Harry stumbles in his haste to get off the bed and catches himself on Nick’s dresser.

“Feeling a sense of deja vu,” Nick says wryly. 

Harry pauses halfway to the door and turns back around. He doesn’t want to run away like he did the last time, even though that’s exactly what he’s doing. He walks the few steps back and leans down to brush a careful kiss to Nick’s lips like an apology. Nick beams at him, though, and Harry feels unspeakably guilty. 

“I’ll see you later,” Harry promises. 

“See you,” Nick says, waggling his fingers in a tiny wave.

-

Harry is sitting in the viewing room, watching the stars, when Nick finds him. Nick sits down next to him, leaving a careful space between them, and doesn’t say anything. 

“Do the stars sing to you, too?” Harry asks eventually, voice modulated so soft that Nick barely hears him. 

He takes his time with his response, reaching out to hold Harry’s hand in the dim light. Harry stares at their intertwined hands and maps the path every sensation takes up his artificial nerve endings. “No,” Nick says finally, and if Harry had a heart it would be sinking right now, but as it is he doesn’t feel anything but mild disappointment as a response to finding an assumption incorrect. He wants to reach inside himself and cross more wires so he can force himself to feel the way he should. 

“But Harry,” Nick says, “don’t you know what this means?” He lifts Harry’s hand, wraps it in both of his and brushes a featherlight kiss over Harry’s knuckles. “They do it just for you.”

 

**4**

If Harry had really been trying, he should have deliberately scheduled a visit to a planet with sentient life, because meeting the residents of Threshta boosts the crew’s morale more than Harry would have even thought possible. 

He gets unexpectedly called into a meeting with Matt, Aimee, and Liam, the purpose of which turns out to be discussing whether they should consider rerouting just enough that the likelihood of encountering more sentient life is increased. 

“Not so much that we’re breaking protocol, of course,” Matt says seriously. “But… just enough.”

“I think it’s a good idea,” Liam says. “I think if we go back to how it’s been, it’ll be even worse than before.”

Aimee nods. “Agreed.”

“Morale was up even before this encounter, though,” Matt points out. “Harry, do you think we can rely on those statistics?”

Harry thinks about how he’s been avoiding Nick and how at some point he’s going to have to stop avoiding and actually tell Nick that he can’t be what Nick wants (or, at least, what Nick _should_ want). “No,” he says, “I don’t think we can.”

Matt nods and steers the conversation onward. Harry can see both Liam and Aimee eyeing him with concern, though. He does his best to ignore it. 

“I think we’re done, guys, thanks for meeting,” Matt says eventually. Harry hurries out of the room as fast as possible, but Liam still catches him halfway down the corridor.

“Hey, Harry,” he says, “are things okay between you and Nick?”

“They’re fine,” Harry says immediately. “Why do you ask?” 

Liam shrugs. “Aimee says he’s not been with you as often. You know, Nick spoke very highly of you when I met with him.”

“You shouldn’t be telling me that,” Harry says.

“No worries, no more details, patient confidentiality remains intact,” Liam says, raising his hands in surrender. “I just wouldn’t want to see you two stop being friends. No one thinks anything of it, I hope you know.”

“What would they think of it?” Harry asks, genuinely unsure what Liam is referring to. 

Liam looks uncomfortable. “The whole human and android aspect,” he says as though it’s obvious. “None of us thinks of you as any less a person than the rest of us, and I’m fairly sure we’d all defend you to the death.”

Harry’s immediate reaction is to want to tell Liam that no one should be doing that for him. He’s not worth as much as any of the human lives on this ship. He doesn’t, though, the sincere look on Liam’s face stopping him. “Thanks, Liam,” he says instead. “That’s— good to hear.”

Liam smiles and claps Harry on the shoulder. 

-

Nick is unsure if Harry is avoiding him, but he thinks he might very well be. Nick had pinged him to ask if he wanted to accompany Nick to the mess and gotten his automated busy message in response, so he’s taken to listlessly wandering around the ship instead. He ends up on the engineering deck and sits down at Caroline’s workstation. He wonders what tiny crevice she’s crawling around in right now.

“Nick!” Caroline crows when she finds him there not five minutes later. The palms of her hands are pitch black and her face is not much better. “Haven’t seen you down here in ages, what’s up?” 

Nick shrugs as he gets up to hug Caroline in greeting, disregarding the fine layer of dirt she’s coated in. “Not a lot, just thought I’d visit. Where’s your partner in crime?” 

“She’s somewhere around here,” Caroline says, waving her hand. “I was just seeing if there were any blockages in the engine that need attention, but that’s boring.”

“It’s not,” Nick says. “Are there?”

“Maybe, though probably not. I’m going to see if I can get Harry down here to do a sweep, he’s the best at it.” She pauses, and Nick has just enough time to brace himself. “I would’ve thought you’d be with him, actually.”

“Ah, well, he’s busy,” Nick says, trying to be nonchalant. He can tell he’s missed the mark when Caroline narrows her eyes in consideration. 

“Did something happen between you two? There’s been kind of a buzz around the ship.”

Nick sighs heavily. He doesn’t particularly want his relationship with Harry to be the subject of a buzz. “Nothing that’s worth a buzz,” he says.

“But something,” Caroline correctly interprets. “Wait, let me ping LMC, she’ll want to hear this.”

Nick sighs again, but he does recount the tale up til now to them both once LMC gets there. 

“I’m mostly confused at this point,” Nick concludes. “I don’t know what he’s thinking. Normally he’s straightforward, but this whole wanting to kiss me and then running away thing is sort of… mixed signals.”

LMC looks thoughtful. “You’d think androids wouldn’t be able to give off mixed signals.”

“Well, Harry’s proof that they’re more complex than we give them credit for. We don’t usually think about androids wanting to learn how to kiss,” Caroline points out. “He’s probably confused as well. I can’t see why kissing would be nice for them, can you?”

“He said it was good, but I think he was lying,” Nick admits. “I thought I made it clear he could stop at anytime, that we were just seeing, at first, but I don’t know… I don’t know much of anything.”

“Well, it looks like communication is key here,” LMC says. She prods at Nick’s leg with her toe from where she’s sitting in her chair. “You’re the expert with that.”

“That’s what concerns me sometimes,” Nick says sadly.

“It concerns us all, babe,” Caroline says with a smile. “Just corner him and demand answers, that should work, right?”

Nick laughs shortly. “You make that sound easy.”

-

In the end, after a week of dithering about and avoiding talking to people because they all inevitably ask about Harry, Nick finds Harry at his charging station. “We need to talk,” he says.

Harry opens his eyes and does the closest thing to a glare Nick has ever seen on him. “What about?”

“Have you been avoiding me?” 

“I’ve been busy,” Harry says, dodging the question. 

Nick nods. “Of course, you always know how to keep busy.” He pauses, scuffing his shoes along the floor nervously. “You didn’t like kissing, did you?”

Harry refuses to look directly at Nick, instead staring somewhere over his shoulder. “I didn’t not like it,” he says. “It just wasn’t what I expected. Or what I wanted.”

Nick’s heart sinks into his stomach. He feels a bit like throwing up. “Well, that’s all right, though. We were just trying. Now we know.” 

“It’s useless trying,” Harry says, “I can’t learn how to be a human. I can only learn how to pretend.” 

“Oh,” Nick says, sudden realisation hitting him. “Harry, no.”

“What?” 

“That’s not what I meant when I said you could learn. I don’t want you to pretend anything at all.”

“I can’t not. I just want to feel…” He shrugs and looks down. “But I don’t. I know what I should feel, and I don’t.”

Nick stares at Harry, considering. Harry resolutely doesn’t look up from where he’s studying the rings of bright blue fanning out from his feet that form the base of his charging station. “Who’s to say you should? There are billions of humans, and all of them have different feelings about things.” He pauses, then adds, “We don’t all even like kissing, necessarily. There’s such a thing as being asexual. You said so yourself that no two humans recount the same events in the same way.”

Harry shakes his head. “There are baselines.”

“Well, fuck the baselines,” Nick says. “You’re not human, you’re an android.”

“Thanks for the update,” Harry mutters. 

Nick sighs. “Sorry, I just. How many times have I told you that you don’t want to be human?” 

“46, if you count just now,” Harry says.

Nick laughs, the sound short and out of place. “See, that’s what I mean. I’m sure that number is accurate, and if you were human, you probably wouldn’t know it.”

“So?”

“ _So,_ that’s what I like about you. You’re not human. You’re Harry.” 

“What’s so great about that?” 

“How much time do you have?” Nick counters. “I don’t want to get sappy up in here, but I will if I have to. Besides, what’s so great about being human? And don’t give me some flowery emotions shit.”

Harry doesn’t say anything, because all he really has is the ‘flowery emotions shit’ and his desperate wish to be able to truly relate to the people he spends all his time with.

Nick waits patiently, and when Harry doesn’t break the silence, he slides a chair over, settles in with his tablet, and keeps on waiting.

-

“I hope you don’t think this conversation is over just because I’m leaving now,” Nick says a couple hours later, getting to his feet and stretching, “because it’s not. You’re never going to be human, and I think it’s a waste of your time to chase after something you can’t have. What do you think?” 

Harry doesn’t have an answer for that, so he shrugs. “I’ll let you know.”

“That’s all I ask.” 

-

Harry is in the viewing room again, listening to the screech of the stars in FTL and thinking about being something that he’s not. The problem is that he can see Nick’s logic so easily, but it can’t stop him from wanting to be human anyway. It never has.

He hears the doors slide open behind him and turns to see who it is. He relaxes the slightest bit when he sees Caroline. “Hi,” he says.

“Hey, Harry,” she says, coming to sit on the other end of the bench. “You busy?” 

“The opposite. You?”

“Taking a break while Laura-May holds down the fort,” Caroline says. “Had to get away from the engineering deck, the ship is being particularly loud today.” 

Harry nods his understanding.

“You’re here a lot,” Caroline says after a moment of silence.

“Yes,” Harry agrees. “I can hear the stars.” Caroline looks at him in question, so he adds, “It has to do with their varying brightness and the distance they are from each other. It results in different musical tones.”

“That’s cool,” Caroline says. “Do all androids have that? Is there some sort of reason for it?”

Harry shakes his head. “No, it’s a flaw somewhere in my design.” 

“Like synesthesia,” Caroline says. 

Harry runs a search for the term. “Yes, like that.”

Caroline leans in closer to Harry like she has a secret to tell. “I can feel sounds. Like the low whirring of the ship we can hear right now? It’s a tickle along my skin.” 

Harry closes his eyes to shut out the stars so he can hear the whirring Caroline is talking about. “Fascinating,” he murmurs. 

“That’s why I like space,” Caroline says. “It’s quiet.” 

“Not for me,” Harry says, opening his eyes again. 

It occurs to Harry that if anyone would know how possible it is for him to succeed in being human, it would be Caroline, someone who works with a machine day in and day out. “Caroline,” he starts, but then he can’t find the words and falls silent. 

Caroline looks at him expectantly. “Yeah?” 

“Do you think that I could be like a human?”

Caroline frowns, seemingly considering it. “Like a human? Sure. You exhibit human characteristics, you know that. You’re more human than a tablet or even the ship is. But why would you want to be when you can be yourself? Being human isn’t the be all end all.”

“I’ve always thought so,” Harry says, but suddenly he’s thinking about Liam telling him that the crew would die for him, and Nick saying he likes Harry best the way he is, and he’s not so sure anymore. 

“Well,” Caroline says, “maybe it’s time to start thinking about something else.” She smiles at him. Harry tentatively smiles back and thinks that maybe that wouldn’t be so hard. 

Both of their communicators go off then, just as the ship drops out of FTL. “New planet,” Harry says. They both study it as the ship gets steadily closer. 

“Looks the most like Earth that I’ve ever seen, I think,” Caroline says.

Harry privately agrees, but he doesn’t say anything. It wouldn’t be right to get even one person’s hopes up.

-

Harry pulls Nick aside just before he’s about to go down to the latest planet, exosuit already on. Nick is startled and slightly confused, tripping over his feet. “Whoa, Haz, what’s this about?” 

“I think I want to be more than just a machine made for a purpose,” Harry tells him. “And I think that I already am that, so.”

Nick’s confusion breaks into a grin. “Finally, you’re talking sense.”

“I take offence,” Harry says flatly. “I talk sense every day.” 

“Oh, please,” Nick says, wrapping Harry up in a hug.

“My sense keeps this ship from being reduced to space dust. You’d all be useless without me,” Harry continues. “I am the only one with my head on straight.”

“Shut up and hug me,” Nick says. 

Harry does.

-

“What does this mean for our relationship?” Nick asks later, when Harry is back from his initial assessment of the planet and waiting for the rest of A4 to be done with their sleep shift. They’re lying side by side on Nick’s bed, holding hands. “Like, not to insist on labels or whatever, because let’s not, but the kissing. You didn’t like it, so what does that mean?”

“I never said I didn’t like it,” Harry objects to the ceiling.

“Well, you didn’t say you _liked_ it, either.” Nick’s got his pout on, Harry can tell without even looking at him.

“I liked that you liked it. I would want to do it to make you happy.”

Nick sighs. “See, that’s all well and good, but I want you to be happy. I’m perfectly willing to never kiss you if that’s what you’re comfortable with.”

Harry smiles, turning his head to look at Nick. “That’s wonderful of you, but I think I can be comfortable with kissing.”

“And everything else?” Nick asks, looking back at him. 

“I think we take your advice,” Harry says. “We go slow, we try it out, and we learn together.” 

 

**5**

There’s an 86.47 percent chance that the planet they’re standing on will be the home of Earth’s new colony. Harry knows the exact number, and he would normally just say ‘about 85 percent’ like a human would, even to himself, but he’s not human. 

“The probability that I’m in love with you is one hundred percent,” Harry says to Nick. 

Nick takes Harry’s hand, their fingers slotting together perfectly, and smiles the smile that’s just for him. “Good, because I’m in love with you, too.” 

Harry smiles back. The stars are humming above them, but so is Nick, and he sounds more authentic and beautiful than anything the stars could hope to replicate.


End file.
